Larry Hama took a lot from Logan: the reliability of his
memories, his adamantium, that “snikt” sound he makes when his claws pop, his
greatest enemy’s mental faculties (just kidding!), and for a time his nose. That’s
a lot of deconstruction for a character who still managed to show up in what
felt like almost every Marvel book in the 1990s. (Although certainly, by making
Wolverine an Avenger in the 2000s, the company was determined to double down on
that glut)
Hama, also known for his work on G.I. Joe, Bucky O’Hare and
a number of Venom miniseries, wrote Wolverine’s solo title from 1990 to 1997,
with a few hiatuses in between, writing issues 31 to 53, 55 to 57, 60 to 109 and 111 to
118.
But let’s drill down a bit, because if I’m being honest,
my Wolverine’s a little rusty. Strike that; rust implies metal, and when I
started reading the book in 1993, he
had just had the metal sucked out of him during a pretty sweet fight with
Magneto aboard his orbital space station (because every few years, a mutant
leader is required to have a floating space station or island utopia).
The great adamantium-suck gave Wolverine some time to go
wandering, to leave the X-Men, to fight old enemies so they could say, “Holy
crap, where’d your adamantium go? And why do you still have claws?”
Lady Deathstryke, who was all
set to kill Logan, Heather Hudson and Puck when she shows up at Hudson's house
in Ottawa, takes pity on him and walks away. The pseudo-vampire Bloodscream
stalks him across Canada, to Muir Isle and back, teaming up with the androids
Albert and Elsie Dee in a subplot that disappears after issue 86. Cyber stomps off
half of Wolvie's claws on one hand (which slowly heal, issue by issue) and
pumps him full of hallucinogens and poison. The Hand walk away from him, after
Yukio logics them into thinking they had the wrong guy with the same haircut
and speech patterns. Maverick goads him into attacking him, but only because
the Legacy virus has made him suicidal.
There's a recurring theme of
Wolverine dropping in on old friends and being trapped by a killer. He's taken
to Muir Island and is hunted down by Cyber, then two arcs later visits Alpha
Flight’s Mac and Heather Hudson in the arctic and is trapped at a research
station by creatures called the Hunters in Darkness.
Finally, he returns to the X-Mansion in issue 90 to find
nobody’s home but us Sabertooths (the team was off trying to stop Legion from
going back in time to kill Magneto, resulting in the death of Xavier instead
and the creation of the Age of Apocalypse timeline). Logan and Creed have one
of their more epic tussles, which ends with Wolverine jamming a claw right
through Sabertooth’s brain just as their timeline unravels.
90 is one of Hama's best issues.
He does a great job of contrasting Wolverine and Sabertooth's fight in the
mansion with the on-TV police beating and arrest of a serial killer who has numbed
himself to pain to allow him to resist arrest, much like Creed keeps zapping
himself on the force field of his containment unit to get used to the pain and
make good his escape.
When the X-books return four months later, Sabertooth is
being cared for by the X-team as a simpleton and Wolverine becomes an outside
dog, living on the grounds of the estate as opposed to inside with the more
trusted members of the team, like the Cajun who can’t help but give off a
rape-y vibe and the blue-skinned guy who’d done time as the embodiment of
death.
It’s at this point that Hama begins building toward what we
think will be the return of Logan’s adamantium, as it’s revealed that Cable’s
son Tyler Dayspring, now going by Genesis and wearing Apocalypse’s old armor,
has busted Wolvie’s old enemy Cyber out of prison to steal his adamantium and
bond it to Logan. In issue 100, the bonding process fails, leading Wolverine
into such a feral state that he LOSES HIS NOSE! Let me repeat: The X-Man known for his superior sense of smell LOST HIS NOSE.
Comics, everyone! Don’t
worry, it got better, but mostly only because artists either forgot or
tired of drawing him in a bandana with a face that looked like it had been
stepped on by the Juggernaut.
Marc Silvestri drew the issues
in the early part of Hama’s run. Adam Kubert took over starting with 75. I was
a big fan of the Kubert Bros. back then, between Adam on Wolverine and Andy on
X-Men. Also, issue 80 features early work by Ian Churchill, who went on to draw
a four-issue Deadpool mini and was the regular penciller on Cable for a time.
Kubert uses a lot of vertical
layouts, requiring the reader to flip the book every few pages.
Issue 90 also experiments with
gatefold pages. Again, an interesting idea, but when the fold breaks right on a
word bubble it can be hard to read. Combine that with vertical layouts, and
reading can be an exercise in patience. I can only imagine how they dealt with
this in collected editions.
New friend: Issue 79 marks the
first appearance of Zoe Culloden, expediter for the interdimensional firm of
Landau, Luckman and Lake, who would go on to play a big role in Joe Kelly's
Deadpool run as well.
Crossover interruptus: While "Fatal Attractions" sets up the adamantium-free Wolverine story quite nicely,
1994’s "Phalanx Covenant" kinda jams its way into a story in progress about
Wolverine in Canada and Bloodscream tricking Albert and Elsie Dee into helping
him find Logan. And of course 1995’s "Age of Apocalypse" interrupts a perfectly
good Sabertooth fight. Onslaught comes calling in 1996 just as Logan loses his
nose, and Hama's run ends with 1997’s "Operation: Zero Tolerance."
Easter egg: a video from a
scientist in issue 80 talks about a sample of Wolverine's tissue labeled “Logan
X #23.” COINCIDENCE?
Funny ad alert: A comic shop in
Virginia announced it was holding a memorial service for Professor X, after the
events of "Legion Quest." Wonder if they did the same thing in 2012?
Hama’s run is available in Essential Wolverine Vols. 2
through 6. Vol. 6 also includes a four-issue story by Warren Ellis titled “Not
Dead Yet” that sticks with me because, well, Ellis
is my jam.
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